Kirsti Katariina Simonsuuri was born in Helsinki,
has studied at the University of Helsinki and in France
and Germany, and holds a doctorate from Cambridge
University ( 1977). She was Senior Research Fellow at
the Academy of Finland in 1981-89, and is now docent
in Comparative Literature at the University of Helsinki.
For 1984-86 shr was affiliated with the Comparative
Literature department at Harvard University as Ful-
bright Visiting Scholar and for 1986-88 with the Depart-
ment of English and Comparative Literature at
Columbia University. Her publications include a
monograph on eighteenth-century notions of Homer
and the early Greek epic (published by Cambridge
University Press in 1979), and essays and studies on
classical and modern literature including Finnish litera-
ture. Her works in Finnish include poetry, fiction and
essays, some of which have appeared in translation in
France, the United States, Germany, Hungary and
elsewhere. She has translated Sylvia Plath, Simone
Weil and Virginia Woolf into Finnish.

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brenda@fores.demon.uk